This article was originally published on Forbes. Head to the sustainability channel for more content like this.
A new study has found that shifting to a four-day working week, without the loss of pay, could shrink the U.K.’s carbon footprint by 127 million tonnes per year by 2025.
The new report released by the 4 Day Week Campaign and Platform London – an environmental and social justice collective, shines a light on the carbon savings that could occur if we scrapped one working day in pursuit of helping the U.K achieve its ambitious climate targets.
It’s not just planetary benefits that have made the notion of a four-day working week appealing.
The pandemic has proved to be an inflection point that has sparked a shift in work culture where flexible hours and substituting the city office for the home office have become the norm, not the exception. With this, the promise of a better work-life balance could contribute to nurturing our mental health and boosting productivity.
A shorter working week could help to cut U.K. carbon emissions
With targets to reduce emissions by 78% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels and the promise of building back better, the U.K. Government needs to review every inch of the nation’s economy to identify areas where greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be reduced.
In the ‘Stop the clock – The Environmental Benefits of A Short Working Week’ report, Platform London argues that embracing a shorter working week could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 127 million tonnes per year by 2025. This represents a reduction of 21.3% from 2020, a figure that is more than the entire carbon footprint of Switzerland and the equivalent to taking 27 million cars off the road.
The publication outlines the urgency of doing so, given that the U.K’s consumption-based footprint between 1990 and 2016 has only dropped by 15% and continues to drive emissions across the globe.
Carbon saving opportunities of a four-day working week across electricity, commuting and household consumption underline how every little can help in the race to net zero. Evidence from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts found that a 10% reduction in working hours would have a ‘scale effect’ of reducing the ecological footprint by 12.1%, and the global carbon footprint by 14.6% annually.
Condensing the traditional five-day working week has the obvious benefit of reducing emissions accrued via commuting. Given that over half of the 26.5 million working people aged 16 – 74 in England and Wales drive themselves to work, this could make a substantial difference. Researchers from the University of Reading found that dropping one working day could decrease the number of miles driven by employees traveling to work by 558 million each week.
Simple switches from the default takeaway food options to home-prepared meals during the working day could abate our individual carbon footprints, as well as appease the prolific use of plastic packaging used for convenience foods. This is essential given that the annual consumption of ready-made meals in the UK accounts for GHG emissions of 12.89 Mt carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), the volume equal to the emissions of a whole country, such as Jamaica.
A number of European politicians are endorsing the premise of a four-day working week, including Leader of The Green Party, Caroline Lucas, who has expressed concerns over people’s wellbeing.
“It’s important to consider how this could benefit our mental health, especially after the pandemic. The lines have become increasingly blurred as we continue to work from home, with no checks and balances on times for logging on and off.” notes Joe Ryle, Campaign Officer, 4 Day Week Campaign.
“With national pilot schemes in both Scotland and Spain to trial the four-day working week, we see no reason why the U.K. Government shouldn’t trial a similar programme.” adds Ryle.
Outside of Europe, Asian countries are contemplating a transition from previous modes of working. Most recently, the Japanese government have been considering a four-day work week in the hope that workers will be at less risk of “Karoshi”, translating to ‘death by overwork’.
Progressive companies have put this theory into action. Unilever’s New Zealand headquarters are trialling the programme with its 81 employees for a year. Similarly, German global affiliate network Awin has launched the four-day work week for over 1000 of its workers, including 300 staff members in the U.K., to overhaul a traditional input measurement model and focus on output.
Worldwide, companies of all sizes are experimenting with the shorter working week as a new modus operandi to ascertain the benefits of the organisation’s employee welfare and bottom-line performance. Shane Hickenlooper, Co-Founder and CEO of digital marketing agency Scroll, based in Utah, strove to integrate this policy with the intention to demonstrate to employees, the company cares about them on an individual and personal level too.
Hickenlooper recorded that the organisation has cut Scroll’s energy annual consumption by 20%. “Even if every business worked remotely on Fridays, this alone could make a huge impact.” he says.
It’s not just energy reduction rates that have improved. Shane fed back on comments relayed by employees which cited stronger relationships at home, the development of more effective time management skills to accomplish all tasks in four days, as well as a vast improvement in physical and mental health.
To what extent the four-day working week will be a priority for the UK’s Secretary of State for BEIS, Alok Sharma at COP26 is up for debate. However, the rise of regulatory, investor and institutional pressures for businesses to meet net-zero targets and sustain respectable ESG scores means that executives should be examining each area of the business for scope 1 – 3 emissions savings opportunities. As a consequence, this could accelerate the uptake of the four-day working week, especially if the aforementioned trials create a strong business case for environmental efficiencies, improved productivity and healthier employees.
Conditions for an effective four-day working week
The four-day working week is by no means an instant panacea to the UK’s consumption-based carbon footprint. Equally a reduction in working time could harm the environment if not managed correctly. For example, shortening the working week, but increasing global travel to capitalise on long weekends would be counterproductive. If introduced at a national level, it must be paired with the correct policies to mitigate the risks of stimulating further environmental degradation.
Salient actions to sustain the positive impact of a shorter working week include; ensuring no loss of pay and encouraging additional leisure time away from resource-intensive or environmentally harmful consumption. Additionally, the 4 Day Work Week Campaign highlights the importance of creating union bargaining power to manage how firms respond to the new limits on working hours.
With reports that a five-day working week in the office may be back on the cards for some and the denouncement of remote-working in favour of business as usual by JP Morgan, these conditions are essential if we are to successfully capitalise on the environmental advantages of transitioning to a four-day working week.
A four-day working week could boost mental health
There is compounding evidence to suggest that a shorter working week and stronger work-life balance can help nurture our mental wellbeing. Mental health charity, Mind, revealed that from a study of 15,000 – over half of adults and two thirds of young people had noted a deterioration in their mental health following lockdown restrictions last year caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The impact of loneliness, anxiety and additional pressure at work continues to take its toll.
“The lines between work and leisure time have become blurred, particularly as our social plans have fallen by the wayside during lockdowns” says Emma Mamo, Head of Workplace Wellbeing at the charity.
“We might also be feeling pressured to work longer than our usual contracted hours, due to increased workload, feeling pressure to pick up colleagues’ work if they’ve been furloughed or are off sick, or struggling to juggle work with parenting responsibilities.” notes Marmo.
The desire to work flexibly, in addition to working a shorter week could be beneficial to our mental health. Data from 2019 taken from over 5000 workers found that two-thirds of employees (68%) wanted to work flexibly in at least one form that is not currently available to them.
Being the architect of our working weeks, including making them shorter, is a new form of flexibility which for Marmo, is essential. “It’s important that employers encourage and promote a good work-life balance. Managing colleagues remotely can mean it’s harder to identify when a co-worker might be struggling, and any instances of ‘presenteeism’ – staff working when they should be taking time off sick to help them recover” she adds. That’s why Mind have now formulated a new work from home Wellness Action Plan to help managers understand each employee’s unique triggers for poor mental health.
Protecting workers mental wellbeing is not just a pastoral duty but can actually stimulate organisational productivity. Research by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) showed that a record 17.9 million working days were lost due to work-related mental health issues in the year 2019/2020, compared to just 12.8 million days lost in the previous year.
That extra day could help us re-connect with the outdoors, enhance our appreciation for the natural world and embrace nature-based prescriptions as a new antidote to mental health difficulties. The 4 Day Work Campaign and Platform London Access lament that equal access to green spaces is a critical element to coincide with a shorter working week.
Calls for a wellbeing economy that would prioritise citizen’s health in order to deliver a sustainable and equitable recovery from the pandemic is yet another example of how the U.K. is galvanised by a better work-life balance. As we continue to adjust our everyday behaviours to the conditions of what it takes to operate within planetary boundaries, the adoption of a four-day working week could cultivate our connection to nature during down time and drive environmental stewardship amongst both workers and organisations.
Did you enjoy this article? You can read the latest on energy, business, food, fashion and so much more via the Forbes Sustainability channel.
Check out these articles on nature therapy and places in London for a mindful moment.
Join hundreds of other readers and subscribe to the S & S monthly newsletter here
